


someone to hold onto

by dear_universe



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Best Friends, Black Character(s), Blood, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Haunted Houses, Holding Hands, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Pokemon References, Team Rocket (Pokemon), Tumblr Prompt, adora is alice, catra is the cheshire cat, i hope you enjoy....., i worked very hard on this, it's fake tho and not graphic, mermista and perfuma are aquawoman and poison ivy, that's bow and glimmer, there's like on scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 16:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21211538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_universe/pseuds/dear_universe
Summary: the haunted house was catra's idea; something for her and adora to do together. so how come catra's the one that ends up scared, and adora's the one staying brave and strong?well, maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.





	someone to hold onto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallengodtier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallengodtier/gifts).

> written for a prompt on tumblr, and for a contest in the she-ra for etheria discord server. hope you enjoy!

Honestly, from the flyer, it hadn’t looked that scary. Sure, the lettering was done as though it was dripping blood, and sure, it had a warning not to bring children under the age of thirteen, but it seemed scary in that kind of corn-syrup fake blood style: harmless and meant more for amusement and thrills. Like something Adora might enjoy, Catra thought as she scrawled the web address on the back of her hand. Something they could do together. 

“I don’t know,” Adora winced later as they scrolled through the website together. “It looks scary.” They were lying on Catra’s bed, door open to appease the parents, Catra’s outrageously fat cat curled up in the crook of her arm.

“Come on, Adora.” Catra pointed at a picture of a plastic skeleton lying on a bed of dead leaves, its hand smashed into the shape of a peace sign. “If this is what we’re dealing with, I think you’ll be perfectly fine.”

Adora squinted at the picture, then turned to glare at Catra, who simply smiled and batted her eyelashes. “This is a bad idea.” 

“Sherbet thinks it’s a great idea, don’t you, Sherbet?” Catra cooed, scratching the cat behind the ears. Sherbet began to purr loudly, and Catra shot Adora a pointed look. 

“Ugh,” Adora groaned, dropping her phone on the mattress and flopping backwards. “You are insufferable, you know that?” Sherbet meowed in protest. “No, not you, baby, you’re perfect. I was talking about my best friend here.” She poked Catra in the arm. 

“Your nails are too short for that to hurt,” Catra said, poking Adora back. 

“Yours aren’t,” Adora grumbled, rubbing her arm. 

“Don’t be such a baby.”

“I’m not! You’re the baby.”

“You’re the one too scared for a little haunted house. It’s not even really a house! I mean, no one lives there.”

“I’m sure our dead bodies will be plenty happy there,” Adora said darkly, reaching around Catra to pet Sherbet.

“Way to think positive, Adora.” Catra rolled her eyes. “You’re so overdramatic.”

“Says you,” Adora scoffed. “Pot calling kettle much?”

“Shut up.” Catra leaned over and tugged on Adora’s ponytail. “I really want to do this with you, okay? We can go in costume, and you can bring some of your dorky friends along, and we can get donuts after.” She gently lifted her arm from around Sherbet and rolled to face Adora, looking down into wide blue eyes. Adora’s cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly parted. Catra felt her own face warming slightly and fought down the blush. “I want to hang out with you. We haven’t done anything in forever.” 

Adora gazed into Catra’s mismatched eyes and knew there was no way she could say no to that face. 

“Fine.”

“Yay!” Catra squealed, jumping up and then immediately falling back onto the bed. “You didn’t hear that.”

“Oh yes I did.” Adora smirked, pitching her voice high in a squeaky imitation of Catra. 

“Shut up.”

“No, you.”

“No, you.”

Adora dug into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a very crumpled green Uno reverse card. “Ha!” She brandished it in front of Catra’s face, looking like the cat who ate the canary. 

“You carry that around with you?”

“Um, duh.”

“Well, jokes on you, because you’re not the only one!” Catra cackled, pulling a red reverse card from the pocket of her leather jacket. 

“You’re the worst.” Adora rolled away from her best friend, nearly falling off the bed in the process. “Remind me why I just signed up to spend more time with you?”

“Because you loooooove meeeeeeee,” Catra sang. 

Adora swallowed hard and hid her face from the other girl, knowing it must be bright red. “That I do,” she mumbled into the palms of her hands.

Halloween would certainly be interesting this year. 

* * *

The house looked old. It looked scary. It did not look like any of the pictures on the website. 

Catra kicked at the ground, scuffing the toe of her bright purple boots. She wasn’t used to wearing so many colors, and even in the darkness, her pink and purple striped hoodie dress and bright pink tights were clearly visible. She tugged at the hem of her dress, spinning around to stare at the parked cars. Adora was ten minutes late, and although Catra would never admit it, she was not a fan of standing alone, in the dark, in front of a haunted house. 

Well, the ticket seller was there, and a couple of actors in ghoulish makeup, but that was some small consolation. Catra spun back and forth every few seconds, terrified one would sneak up on her as they’d done to other patrons. 

“Boo.”

Catra screamed and leapt backwards, crashing to the ground. She could make out that her assailant was tall, blonde, and… “Adora?”

“Hey, Catra,” Adora grinned, holding out a hand to help Catra up. 

“That’s my line,” Catra muttered under her breath, clambering to her feet without Adora’s help and brushing off her dress, her face the same pink as her tights.

“You look nice,” Adora said, letting her hand drop. 

Catra took in Adora’s blue collared dress, frilly apron, and loose blonde waves held back with a black bow. The only thing not completely prim was Adora’s dirty black Converse, which looked utterly out of place next to her bright white tights. Catra sincerely doubted they’d still be pristine by the end of the night. “You don’t look so bad yourself, Alice.” Catra smirked. 

“Right back at you, Cheshire.” Adora laughed, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m not used to wearing dresses,” she mumbled, smoothing out her skirt. “I keep reaching for pockets that aren’t there.”

“Ha! My dress has a pocket.” Catra lifted the hood up over her mass of curls, then shoved both hands in the pocket to demonstrate.

“Lucky.”

They stood there until Adora began whistling and Catra started to kick the gravel again, each darting glances at the other and quickly looking away. Finally, Adora broke the silence. 

“Where is everyone?”

“Oh, your friends?” Adora nodded. “Bow and Glimmer’s ticket number already got called, and Perfuma and Mermista are over talking to one of the actors.” Catra pointed off to a faint cluster of jack o’ lanterns, in front of which several silhouettes could be seen. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t join them,” Adora said, glancing over at Catra as they made their way across the field towards Perfuma and Mermista. 

“I was waiting for you.” Catra shrugged. 

“Or maybe, somebody was scared of the actors?” Adora raised her eyebrows, accidentally on purposefully bumping into Catra.

“Yeah, right,” Catra said, bumping Adora back. “You’re the scaredy-cat here.”

“And you’re an actual cat,” Adora pointed out, hip-checking Catra maybe a little harder than necessary, quickly grabbing her elbow to keep the shorter girl from falling. They made eye contact, both flushed. Then, Adora dropped Catra’s arm like it was burning, quickening her pace so that she left Catra in the dust. 

“Wait up, jerk!” Catra yelled, running to keep up. She quickly lost sight of the streak of blonde and blue in the dark. Circling round a cluster of people, Catra glanced over her shoulder to see if Adora was following her, only to run smack dab into someone and crash to the ground for the second time that day. 

“Sorry, are you okay?” Catra asked, climbing to her feet and pulling her hood back over her head, then offering a hand to help whatever poor soul she’d barreled over up. They grasped her 

But even in the dark, even with her terrible eyesight, Catra could see that something was very, very wrong with this hand.

It was so pale it almost glowed, and the back of the hand was bruised to the point that hardly any skin was visible. The veins were stark and blood-red instead of the expected blue, and blood dripped from the fingertips. It was cold as ice.

Catra let loose a bloodcurdling scream, turning and running blindly toward the jack o’ lanterns she and Adora had spotted from the parking lot, leaving the bloody-handed being lying on the grass. She ran until she caught sight of blonde hair and a poofy blue dress, and she skidded to a stop next to the taller girl, breathing hard.

“Catra?” Adora asked, turning to stare at her best friend. Catra’s hood had fallen off again, and there were little bits of grass and leaves in her cloud of dark hair. There were grass stains on the knees of her tights, and the fake leather had peeled off the toe of her boots. “Was that you who was screaming?”

“Um.” Catra squinted up at Adora, now flanked by Mermista and Perfuma, dressed as Aquawoman and Poison Ivy, respectively. “No?”

“That sounds like a yes,” Adora said, leaning over and plucking a stray leaf out of Catra’s hair. 

“Sounded like a no to me,” Catra grumbled. Adora chose to ignore her remark.

“Anyways, you have our tickets, right? Has our number been called yet?” 

Catra dug in the pocket of her dress, pulling out six hair ties, her phone, several dollar bills, a very grubby and tangled pair of earbuds, a pink and purple striped scrunchie, and lastly, two very crumpled tickets. She passed them to Adora and pulled her hair back into an extremely bushy ponytail. 

“You’ve got, like, a lot of leaves in your hair,” Mermista said, passing her trident back and forth from hand to hand. 

“I’m dressed as a cat,” Catra said through the scrunchie she was holding in her mouth. “I think it’s alright if I look a little feral.”

“She’s embracing nature!” Squealed Perfuma, whose hair was artfully intertwined in a complex arrangement of ferns and flowers. 

Adora glanced back and forth from the tickets to the call screen on the front of the house. “Catra, that’s us.” She was tapping her foot so hard, she ground all the grass away. 

“Alright.” Catra crammed her things back into her pocket and causally linked her arm through Adora’s. She was calm, she was cool, she was collected, and she definitely did not feel as though her heart was about to burst out of her chest. The combination of Adora’s skin brushing against hers and the thought of that bloody, rotting hand was proving to be a bit too much for Catra, in very different ways.

“Have fun!” Mermista called after them, and Perfuma burst into giggles.

“The makeup at this place is way better than I expected,” Adora babbled. “It almost relaxes me, actually, because I can just remember that it’s fake, and they could wipe it off at any second. So I’m not actually scared, really. I’m glad you convinced me to do this.”

“Me too.” Catra flashed a grin up at Adora, and it’s true that she was happy to be spending time with her best friend, her closest friend in the world, but she was beginning to think a haunted house had not been the best idea. 

They approached the admittance desk, manned by a woman with a drawn on widows peak and a trail of fake blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Now that level of scary makeup, Catra could handle. “85?” She asked, and Catra managed to nod. “Awesome!” She grinned, flashing her fake fangs as Adora handed the tickets over. “I love your costumes,” she gushed as she passed them their ticket stubs. “You two are so cute.”

“Oh no, we’re not-”

“We’re not a couple, or anything-”

“It’s not like that-”

The woman simply raised her eyebrows at them and gestured to the open door. “Have fun! We’ll see you on the other side.” She winked, and suddenly they were through the door. 

The first room was even darker than the field just come from, lit only by a single, blood-red candle seemingly floating in the center of the room. Catra dropped Adora’s arm, not wanting the taller girl to feel how she was shaking. Every shadow seemed to twist and turn into a monster from Catra’s nightmares; every creak of the floorboards was a creature of the night just waiting to pounce. 

“Look at these pretty girls,” someone behind them rasped, and Catra shrieked, spinning to face a hunched old woman, her face covered in warts, a pair of knife-sharp knitting needles clutched in her gnarled hand. “Such youth… I could use some of that.” She stepped closer, reaching out a hand to hover over Catra’s face, and Catra was frozen in place, and she didn’t know where Adora was, and she could barely see, and-

A warm, solid hand slipped into hers. Adora, tall and strong and dressed in a puffy monstrosity Glimmer’s mother had made, and yet still brave. Catra knew it was fake, of course she knew that, but having someone to hold on to made it that much easier to believe. 

“Let’s keep walking, Catra,” Adora whispered, tugging on the other girl’s hand and pulling her towards a doorway Catra hadn’t spotted. Catra stared into the wizened crone’s eyes and thought she caught a sparkle of glee before Adora pulled her into the next room. 

This one was so much brighter that they both just blinked for a second, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Once they did, though, Catra wished they hadn’t. 

It was stark, bright white, empty except for a porcelain bathtub, which was filled to the brim with thick, sticky red blood. At first, Catra thought it was just the blood, which she could probably handle. But then, she caught sight of the crown of a skull peeking out of the tub, and she gripped Adora’s hand so tight she thought she must be cutting the other girl’s circulation off. The only sound in the room was Catra’s shallow breathing. Then, footsteps. 

“What, you don’t want to stay and play?” Said an utterly blood soaked figure as they emerged from an unseen door. And Catra was screaming again, and moving through to the next room without even thinking of it. She felt like her brain was short circuiting, any intelligent thoughts she may have had gone. The only thing left was the warmth of Adora’s hand in hers and the smell of iced coffee on Adora’s breath and the disembodied heads hanging from the ceiling.

“Catra?”

“Yes?” She managed to squeak out in response. 

“I didn’t expect you to be the scared one.”

Catra winced. “Me neither.”

“It’s okay that you’re scared,” Adora said. She hadn’t let go of Catra’s hand since taking it, not once. As if reading her best friend’s mind, she continued, “I won’t let go. This will be over soon and then we can eat donuts, alright?”

Catra’s heart was beating very, very fast. She glanced at Adora, who was already looking back at her. They stared at one another, frozen. They were so close Adora could see every freckle on Catra’s face. Catra leaned in-

“Hey, over here!” One of the heads hanging from the ceiling yelled. And they were off again, running into the next room.

The rest of the haunted house passed in a blur of gripping hands and metallic scents and screams and laughter bouncing off the walls, until at last, Catra and Adora burst out of a door and onto the grass. They could still hear the sound of a chainsaw revving behind them. 

“That.”

“Was.”

“Insane!” They both burst into giggles, moving farther away from the house when they heard a scream echoing within. Catra gazed up at Adora, who was still holding her hand, and felt the bite of something sharp pierce her heart. 

Adora’s eyes were bright in the light of a nearby bonfire, her face pink from running through the twisted halls. There was a snag on one of her puffed sleeves, and just as predicted, there were several runs in her tights. Her Converse were, if possible, even more beat up than before, and her once-perfect waves had begun to frizz. Her bubblegum lips were ever so slightly parted.

She looked beautiful.

And all Catra could think of was that moment in the third room, and even though they were standing still her heart began to race. And Adora was leaning in and Catra was taking a step forward and standing tip-toe in her clunky purple boots so that she could press a kiss to Adora’s lips. 

It was soft and sweet and a huge relief after the ragged reality of months of touches and glances and running through a maze of decapitated heads and children dressed as clowns. 

Catra was just leaning in a little further to deepen the kiss when two gremlins burst out of a nearby cluster of bushes. 

“Prepare for trouble!”

“And make it double!”

“To protect the world from devastation!”

“To unite all peoples within our nation!”

“To denounce the evils of truth and love!”

“To extend our reach to the stars above!”

“Jessie!”

“James!”

“Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!”

“Surrender now, or prepare to fight!”

Bow and Glimmer struck a pose, Glimmer doing jazz hands, a Meowth stuffed animal tucked under Bow’s arm. “Meowth! That’s right!” He said out of the corner of his mouth. 

Adora facepalmed. 

“Oh, sorry, were you guys having a moment?” Glimmer asked, blinking innocently at them. 

Bow’s eyes widened at their joined hands and red faces. “Glimmer, I think maybe they actually were.”

“Oh.” Glimmer’s eyes darted back and forth between the two. “Well, uhh… sorry?”

They all just stood there for a second. 

“Wanna go get some donuts?” Adora asked Catra, breaking the silence once again.

“Yes, please,” Catra said, pulling her towards the food stand. “Wanna be my girlfriend?”

“Yes, please.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was a labor of mainly love but also a little bit of hate because it took like three days to write. but mainly love! i'm super proud of this! thank you to everyone who helped me with editing and picking out costumes. 
> 
> if you enjoyed, drop a comment! or come say hi to me on tumblr @nbdoubletrouble . i'd love to hear your thoughts! <3


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